Black Spring Read Online Free PDF Page A

suspicious look and helped himself to the remains of the soup, which he ate with disgusting slurps and sucking noises.
    By now I was heartily sick of my situation. I have never wanted so passionately to leave a place in my life; if the rain had eased even a little, I might have risked getting lost in the darkness, just to escape. At last I told my host that I wished to sleep. He irritably ordered Kush to show me to a room, and the old man took up a candle and, grumbling all the way, led me along an unlit passage and up some narrow stairs. On a landing he opened a door to a room furnished with a narrow bed, a washstand with a mildewed mirror, and a wardrobe. The room had a fusty air, as if it hadn’t been opened for years, and smelled strongly of damp. It was also freezing cold. Kush had every intention of leaving me in pitch-darkness, but I had a protracted argument with him, insisting that he leave the candle for my use, and in the end he acceded grudgingly to my wishes and fumbled his way back downstairs.
    I nervously checked that the silver ring the wizard had given me was securely on my finger and wished that I had not left the phial behind when I had departed in the morning. I set the candle on the washstand and found my matches and placed them beside it — I did not feel at all at ease in this house and didn’t want to be left without light should anything strange happen. I anxiously inspected the wounds on my calf, which were still very painful, for signs of infection, but in that poor light could tell nothing: I would have to wait until I could find a doctor on the morrow. Then I climbed into bed with all my clothes on, laying my coat on top of me for warmth, and blew out the candle, thinking regretfully of my cozy feather mattress in the Red House. But at least I was alone.

A lthough it was so cold that my feet felt like blocks of ice, and the bed was hard and lumpy, I fell asleep quickly, exhausted by the events of the day. I passed into a night of dreams, the most vivid and horrible that I have ever experienced.
    I was walking through a landscape very like the one I had walked in earlier that day, still sere with winter, but something was wrong with the perspective: things that should have been close appeared to be very far away, but the mountains in the distance seemed to press up against me oppressively. The sky was a strange bruised purple. All around me, as far as I could see, stretched rows and rows of graves, some marked with crosses, some with mounds of stone.
    I seemed to have been walking for hours without seeing a single soul, and the farther I walked, the more anxious I became. I was searching for something, although I didn’t know what it was — something dear to me, the loss of which afflicted me grievously. The farther I walked, the farther I was from the possibility of finding it, and yet I knew I could not turn back. My heart grew more and more oppressed.
    At last I saw a figure in the distance, walking toward me. Out of sheer relief, I started running, but then I saw it was Kush. He leered grotesquely when he saw me, in a parody of greeting, and held up his hands. From one dangled a leather bag, which I knew with a dreamer’s clairvoyance was full of gold pieces; the other hand was empty. But in the center of his palm was a wound, from which was falling a constant stream of blood. The blood fell to the ground and made a black puddle, in which was reflected my own face.
    On seeing this, I was overwhelmed by loathing and horror. Kush began to cackle and moved closer to me; I could smell his breath, an odor of decay. I wanted to run, but transfixed by terror, I could not move, and he reached out to touch my face with his bleeding hand. Just before his fingers touched me, I woke up.
    I lit the candle with trembling hands and looked about the room. Although it was so cold I could see the breath hanging in front of my face, I was lathered with sweat. I took a few deep inhalations and admonished